Saturday, January 15, 2005

“ Communications networks have a more important job than generating return on investment — their value comes from their connectivity and from the services they enable. Therefore, the best network delivers bits in the largest volumes at the fastest speeds. In addition, the best network is the most open to new communications services; it closes off the fewest futures and elicits the most innovation.”

The Communist way of planning our life is theoretically the best, since it planes a world where everybody gives the same and gets the same.
But in reality a society like that doesn’t give anybody the incentive to produce, to follow progress.
It condemns the economy to stagnation.
Ideals are wonderful goals, but the filling of our belly is a better one.

In the same way, communications networks live and increase their value proportionally to their ROI, just like everything else on this World.
If a man cannot make a profit out of his job, very rarely he works.

It is true their value is increased by the content they deliver.
Without good content they have no reason to exist.
The fast lines own their success to the P2P Napster downloading.
Without that who would have needed a faster line?
It certainly wouldn’t have become in such a short time a Mass Market.

And without any doubt VoIP is a good content for a Communication Network.

“Designing a network that is intelligently tuned (optimized) for a particular type of data or service — such as TV or financial transactions — inevitably makes that network less open. As software engineers say, "Today's optimization is tomorrow's bottleneck." Thus, the best network is a “stupid” network that does nothing but move bits.2 Only then is the network truly open to any and all services that want to use it, no matter how innovative or how unexpected. In the best network, the services live at the edges of the network and use the network to transport bits; they do not rely on any special characteristics of the network itself. “

The best network is like the Post Office.
Its value is proportionally important to the good it delivers.
If it is a Merry Christmas card its value is a little more than Zero, but if it is an important Paper, its value can be much, much more.
Nevertheless, the cost of transporting a card or an important document is the same.
What gives value is what is at the edges.

But if the Postal service is lousy, it also decreases the value of the edges.

“The Paradox of the Best Network comes about because as a network gets stupider, connectivity becomes a commodity. Those who own and operate the network have less to charge for. After all, they’re just moving bits. The high-value services, the ones that command premium prices, reside at the edge of the best network. Because the best network is simple, it is low-cost to operate. In a competitive market, this means it is low priced. Low price also lowers barriers to innovation at the edges of the best network. “

Low price of transportation makes more things affordable.
If downloading an ebook is very cheap it makes it easier than sending the real book (and so competitive with the old publishing world)

“The telephone companies are impaled on the horns of this dilemma. Historically, their high-margin services have been built into the middle of their network, which has been optimized for a single application — voice. Their business is based on this special-purpose network. They know that implementing the new commodity network threatens the very basis of their business.”

“But, the real threat to the incumbent telephone companies isn’t the Internet. It’s the Paradox of the Best Network. The paradox means that companies that run the old, closed, special-purpose telephone network have an unfit business model for running the new network. No amount of technological upgrading will fix this. To survive, the incumbents must become different businesses. But there’s no guarantee that they'll be the best companies to run the best network. “

The paradox is not in the business model. Where it is convenient, for example long distance calls, the “Incumbents” have already adopted VoIP.
Their threat is in the fact that a Gatekeeper that a few years ago cost hundreds of thousands dollars nowadays has a competitor in a gatekeeper that costs 1000 dollars and may be does a better job.
That means that for doing their business you do not need to be a big company with thousands of employees, but just a one man company, with a very little investment “smart people against dumb companies”.

I do not think that they are “dumb” I think they perfectly understand what the Future will be and they also understand that in the Future there is no place for a Company with thousands of employees and expensive premises.
A one man company with a good PC can theoretically do more than a big one.
And that will happen also very soon with movies, TV, music.
With a good software one only man can play an orchestra, with a cheap digital camera be the director of a successful movie.

All of this is possible thanks to the Revolution of the PC and the Internet.
With one you produce (voice into packets and vice versa) (a movie, or a song) and with the other you “transport” and “broadcast” it.

The real revolutionary thing in the French revolution was the change of the “Market’s Players”.
Instead of one King and a bunch of “nobility”, new active, smart, players came on the scene: The bourgeoisie”

“But the best network is the hardest to make money running. So who builds it? Who runs it? Who fixes it when it breaks? And who develops the next generations of faster, simpler infrastructure?

Arguably, building the best network is a Public Good. It will boost the economy, open global markets, and make us better informed citizens, customers and business people. So, perhaps we should let the government do it. Perhaps we should insist that the government do it.”

No, please. Governments proved to be a King Mida at the reverse.
Instead of changing everything they touched in gold, they made it in something else I do not want to say, because it is a bad word.

“A purely governmental solution, therefore, is too risky. But so is a pure reliance on the invisible hand of the market. Left to itself, the market would favor larger network owners both because they benefit from economies of scale (the more connections you provide, the lower each connection costs) and because they have financial resources to withstand the low operating margins of a commoditized market. Even starting from a mythical "level playing field," larger network owners would acquire smaller ones. And once again, large carriers would become monopoly-like, with little incentive to hook up less-populous and poorer areas. More important, these regenerated monopolies would be as loathe to open their network or to invest in new technology as the current crop of telephone company incumbents. The Paradox of the Best Network is not resolved by the free market; indeed it is a consequence of it. “

The Internet is the “Network of Networks”.
Let it be this way.
Let many privately owned Networks be connected in one big Network.
Let it be the only, real Democratic country in a World of Tyrannical governments and oligarchies.

Let the Smart people win over the Dumb companies.
Let’s build the “Customers’ owned infrastructures”

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

I think it is great.
A P2P of every possible knowledge.
It is the best Internet expression.
It is what Communication means: exchanging thoughts, ideas, knowledge, wisdom...

A little glimpse of what Future will give to Future generations, the ones born in the Internet time.

There is a huge world down there at a mouse click...and the Internet Generations can have access to it, be an active subject, in good and in bad of course, but that is life...
The Internet is made by humans and consequently a virtual mirror of the real life, with a lot of good and a lot of bad.
You must take both and choose.(if you can)

Of course a librarian encyclopedia will look better, will definitely be better, because they invest a lot of money in it.
It will be more precise, more reliable more of everything.

As much as a compressed (good or bad) movie is NOT like the original.

But of course it is up to the user to choose.
One has a better this and a better that, but the other is free.

Would you sacrifice quality to price?
When something is free it is always worth to try...
Anyway, you are always free to say no.

Sunday, January 09, 2005

Greeks assumed that light entered the eye bringing with it what we see and the beauty of nature.
They were wrong.
What happens is this: light waves arrive on the retina, this translates them into tiny upside down images. Millions of receptors carve this up into messages which race off to several billions cells.
These interpret the data and send back messages to project the images the right way up.

The picture translated by the retina and the image projected in the mind's eye are not necessarily the same.
During the process language and culture act as prisms to bend and shape our view, so although we all start out seeing the same things each individual unconsciously creates their own interpretation.

Oscar Wilde (Intentions) writing about Art and Nature said:

"Where, if not from the Impressionists, do we get those wonderful brown fogs that come creeping down our streets, blurring the gas-lamps and changing the houses into monstrous shadows?
To whom, if not to them and their master, do we owe the lovely silver mists that brood over our river, and turn to faint forms of fading grace curved bridge and swaying barge?
The extraordinary change that has taken place in the climate of London during the last ten years is entirely due to a particular school of Art. You smile. Consider the matter from a scientific or a metaphysical point of view, and you will find that I am right.
For what is Nature? Nature is no great mother who has borne us. She is our creation. It is in our brain that she quickens to life. Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that have influenced us.
To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty. Then, and then only, does it come into existence.
At present, people see fogs, not because there are fogs, but because poets and painters have taught them the mysterious loveliness of such effects. There may have been fogs for centuries in London.
I dare say there were. But no one saw them, and so we do not know anything about them. They did not exist till Art had invented them. Now, it must be admitted, fogs are carried to excess.
They have become the mere mannerism of a clique, and the exaggerated realism of their method gives dull people bronchitis.

Where the cultured catch an effect, the uncultured catch cold."

The world can be different seen by a cultured person or by an ignorant one.
As a matter of fact, culture improves life in the sense that allows to experience and enjoy many more things in life.
How can you fully appreciate Music or Art (Painting, Literature) if you do not understand it?

And certainly understanding begins with knowledge.

Wisdom too comes from knowledge.(and experience)

That doesn't mean that a cultured person must necessarily be wise or appreciate Art.
You appreciate what you know, and the better you know it, the better you appreciate it.
Because you can see in it more.

If you are a Scientist you appreciate the part of Science you are an expert of, because you understand it.

What I want to say is:

Whatever you do to learn and to know is never wasted.
I began liking gardening the moment I began reading books on gardening.
I learned how to breed plants and to germinate seeds.
As a "gardening expert" I had better results than as a mere practitioner.

And I enjoy more and more seeing my efforts gratified by a small, little plant I helped to be born from a seed.

Pleasures of life are in what we call "small things", which are far from being small.
The best reward is very often not in earning a big sum of money (which of course I would be a liar if I said I despise) but in achieving something.
I would go as far as to say, it is not even in the achieving, but in doing all what you can to achieve it.

It is not in what you get, but in what you do to get it...and learning how to do it the right way is the purpose of knowledge and culture.

Saturday, January 08, 2005

"...Data is not necessarily information. Information does not necessarily lead to knowledge. And knowledge is not always sufficient to discover truth and breed wisdom. Having Google or Alexandria or the Library of Congress contain all works in a particular form at a particular time is potentially useful, but without critical skills and background any arbitrary reader is likely to find nonsense and believe it fact, read fact and conclude fiction, or simply be left in a state of greater confusion than before... "

I agree.

Data is not necessarily information, but it is better than nothing.

Since thousand of years the purpose of teaching has began with giving opportunities.

The more opportunities, the more culture was spread.

We came from an age when most people couldn’t read or write to one when analphabetism is not so wide spread any more.

That was thanks to the fact that books were published and not hand written.

The fact that culture became cheaper meant that more people could have access to it.

That didn’t mean that all who could have access to it became suddenly cultured people.

As regarding interactivity, I agree, ebooks should be used in their full potential, which is not only text.

I have a Free ebooks website with more than 800 classic ebooks online

http://www.easymediabroadcast.com

I use a mostly unknown software: TK3 which in my opinion is the best you could use.

It allows you a certain kind of interactivity and gives the publisher the chance to use also audio in his ebooks.

I think my most successful ebooks are the audio ebooks.

The one I love most is Tess of the D’Urbervilles, which is a big one, but worth downloading.

I made the next in several volumes, and that helps a lot.

I do it for a hobby and I do not count my time and costs.

But I think what is still lacking on the market is a good hardware for ebooks and emagazines and enews.

It should be something like a tablet PC, not too small, the size of a paperback book, very light and with a good screen.

It could be used like a real book, but with the advantage of carrying several books in one DVD.

Everybody could in this way own a full library (which is a dream for people who like to read) on a few DVDs.

And books could really be interactive.

When I was a child I loved reading, and I would have liked to have a speaking book with images and may be small movies.

I guess interactivity would be perfect for children books and scientific books.

And it would also be possible to easily download a book from the Internet.

Culture would be really accessible to most.

What I found interesting on my website is that the majority of people (enthusiastic) downloading my ebooks is from countries like India or Middle East.

In this way they can have access to books they wouldn’t be able to buy.

So, "And knowledge is not always sufficient to discover truth and breed wisdom", but it is better than ignorance.

Friday, January 07, 2005

It's in principle what journalism should be, but it is not anymore: The free expression of someone's thought.

You can really be your mind's publisher, because it is a really free expression, in the sense that it costs nothing.
You do not have to pay for paper, ink, taxes, commercials and what God knows is associated with the journalistic expression.

You subscribe for free, you write as much, as long as you like, you say what you want, and may be you can even find somebody who reads it...

But it can also be something more.
You can post once daily, or ten times or none.
It can be about VoIP or anything else.
People read it not because they're interested in the subjects you talk about, but because they want a front-row seat to the movies projected on the inside of your head.

"But I want to live in a world where the broadcast media that struggle for mass appeal are counterweighted by micro channels whose programming reflects one mind's caprices, the tastes and interests of a single intelligence that cares not a whit for market share or popular acclaim (or critical applause, for that matter)."

But then, we still want a certain kind of gratification, we still want a certain kind of "popular acclaim", in a few words, we still want to "be read" (and commented).

Thursday, January 06, 2005

"The world’s communications are going IP at an ever increasing rate. All the world’s communications, data, video and voice are inexorably moving to software driven packet switched and in particular Internet Protocol based networks.

More specifically, the Internet and world wide web will continue to grow. Hundreds of millions of users will be added as lower priced personal computers and Internet capable mobile phones continue to spread to the billions of users.

The digital economy will be built on IP. To grasp the impact of this next generation Internet we need to consider how these computer-computer communications together with the human browsers will be used in all the growing areas of web communications.

Consider the effects in e-commerce, e-business, e-government, e-learning, e-health and e-entertainment. In certain countries massive traffic will be generated by e-science using mainly grid computing.

Universities and government think tanks have been developing Grid computing for the past decade. The software is now available as commercial products.

Just as the Internet started off in the universities and the Pentagon so too has Grid computing. Grid computing is software that can use the power and memory and storage of many computers large and small around the campus or around the world to solve massive computing tasks.

The grid architecture will become an extension of web services. It will use all the common items like XML, URI etc and will run on the Internet. It will use IP packets.

It will be a few years before the traffic from Grid computing hits the Internet in a big way. Because by then many grid services will use interactions betweens dozens of supercomputers and thousands of servers and PCs the traffic could be unbelievable.

The architectural requirement s or restraints needed for such network wide computing activity does not mean extra functionality “in the network”. Most of this work and innovation will be done, and can only be done “at the edges” of a “big fast dumb” network. "

Above everything else it should be a respect for function.
We have all suffered from beautiful jugs that don't pour cleanly, handsome offices that are hell to work in, graphically imposing slabs of text that are almost unreadable.

Bloggers who produce striking ideas that don't amuse aren't good bloggers.
It is the ability to do the job in a totally amusing way that makes a good blogger, and that requires an unusual combination of apparently opposing characteristics.

The first is logic, which assesses the issue.
But you can be as logical as you like and still produce a blog nobody reads.
What separates humdrum work from brilliant work is the second characteristic-not normally given much freedom by logical people- and that is humor.

Humor, derived from knowledge, experience and God knows what else, is the unpredictable human element that saves us from a blog written by computers.
It encourages the mind to jump away from the expected, and helps to produce ideas that are surprises as well as interesting.

A good blogger is equipped with a subconscious sponge, capable of absorbing a wide range of stimuli to be tucked away at the back of the mind for future use.
Everything, also the smallest detail, can provide inspiration.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

"I have programs that have evolved within the computer from nothing, and they do fairly complicated things.
You begin putting in sequences of random instructions, and these programs compete and interact with each other and have sex with each other and produce new generations of programs.
If you put them in a world where they survive by solving a problem, then with each successive generation they get better and better at solving the problem, and after a few hundred thousands generations they solve the problem very well.
That approach may actually be used to produce the thinking machine.

Sometimes men build robots, sometimes robots build men, what does it matter really, whether one thinks with metal or with protoplasm?"

Sunday, January 02, 2005

"In point of fact what is interesting about people in good society - is the mask that each one of them wears, not the reality that lies behind the
mask. It is a humiliating confession, but we are all of us made out of the same stuff.
Where we differ from each other is purely in accidentals: in dress, manner, tone of voice, religious opinions, personal appearance, tricks of habit and the like. The more one analyses people, the more all reasons for analysis disappear. Sooner or later one comes to that dreadful universal thing called human nature."

What just happened is a good chance to change the mask.
It won't do that much good to us, but may be we could help some other human being.

Saturday, January 01, 2005

In a country where the price of the oil and of the gas is among the highest of the world (if not the highest) because we pay 90% taxes on it and then 20% Vat on the taxes, they should propose for the Nobel Prize the inventor of the Electric Blankets.
That, I am sure, brings more joy than any poem or novel (at least to the normal people on the road).